Beijing is sometimes referred to as Peking. The latter term does not correspond to any modern transliteration. The term Peking originated with French missionaries four hundred years ago, and corresponds to an archaic pronunciation which does not take into account a k->j sound shift in Mandarin that occurred during the Qing dynasty.

In China, the city has had many names. Between 1911 and 1949, it was known as Beiping (北平) or "Northern Peace". The name was changed because jing means "capital" and the Kuomintang government in Nanjing wanted to emphasize that Beijing was not the capital of China. Curiously, many maps of China from Taiwan still use the old name, although most people in Taiwan call the city Beijing.